A whirlpool of uncertainty, a prison of punishment, a basket of
illusion, the open throat of hell.-The Spring
Sataka.
A brick and some plaster clattered
about Jan Cuxson’s feet as he crossed the temple
chamber and stood looking out at the jungle, and the
animals of all sizes and shapes which were hurtling
through the undergrowth. For a minute he stood
twirling the rusty knife blade between his fingers,
then hid it carefully behind a block of broken masonry.
“Better so,” he muttered,
“not much good as a weapon of defence, but better
than nothing; might put the old man on the track if
he happened to find it on me when he comes to tie
me up. My God! to think of it; I, strong and
healthy and sane, at the mercy of that old priest,
actually under his will-hypnotised, forced
to do exactly what he tells me. Please heavens
the ghee will hold the plaster together round the
ring, and oh! I can’t stand much
more of this suspense.”
He had come to the end of his endurance.
Day had followed night, and night
had followed day monotonously, without a change in
the heartbreaking dreariness of their round.
During the day he had watched the
jungle over the outer wall for hours, rewarded by
an occasional glimpse of deer; once by a striped yellow
shade which had slunk between the trees, causing him
to yearn for his rifle; at night he had lain gazing
at the stars, comfortable enough upon a thick bed
of leaves, untroubled by the mosquito which, as he
had learned, does not thrive in the Sunderbunds Jungle;
and day and night over the wall, or up at the stars,
he strove to look into the future and found a dreary
blank.
But upon this night he turned
with a smile and a question on his lips when the priest
suddenly emerged from behind the heap of stones and
hurried across the flags towards him.
“Haste, sahib! The Mother
is infuriated at the long waiting, and I go to make
sacrifice to appease her. Haste, for it is
not good for man if she stamps with both her holy
feet. Come, and struggle not! Nay, look
not at me in such fashion lest I lay the stress of
my will upon you.”
He looked so frail, that for an instant
the white man had been tempted to fling himself upon
him, and find deliverance for himself and his beloved
by choking the wizened neck, or cracking the old pate
against the stones.
But one is rather at a disadvantage
when thoughts are liable to be read, and plans disclosed
before they are even matured; and he walked submissively
towards the ring in the wall, and seated himself abjectedly
upon the floor, just as a handful of plaster inserted
itself between his neck and the open collar of his
shirt, and the back of his head bumped the wall.
“Something like a slight-
“Haste, sahib! I must
away to placate Kali, the Goddess of Destruction.
There is not long now to wait for the great sacrifice
for which she has waited all these weary years; and
then, and only then, shall the plague, and the pestilence,
and the famine be ended, and the people of India return
to their old-time happiness.”
He never once removed his eyes from
those of the man beneath him, and Cuxson sighed with
relief, well content that the glaring eyes should
not move beyond his face.
Having knotted the thongs tightly,
the old man straightened himself, and smiled up at
the silvery heavens in the ecstasy of his worship.
“Such sacrifice, O Mother, as
thou hast longed for, and which has long been forbidden
thee through the might of the white man who rules us.
The temple is strewn with flowers, and the flames of
hundreds of lights shine in thy fish-shaped eyes,
thou daughter of the eternal snows.” He
looked down suddenly to Cuxson, and bending, whispered
in his ear. “The white woman approaches,
O feringhee, even she who has caused this land
to travail in agony all these years. And you
shall see her, she shall come to you and know you
not, and you shall hear her voice upraised in worship
as she lies upon the altar at her Mother’s feet
while you are bound to the ring in the wall.
She has done well in worship, even in sacrifice, but
it is in her rich warm blood that Kali the Terrible
would lave her hands. Struggle not, for behold,
although I have lifted my will from you that you should
be tormented even as my race has been tormented by
a woman of your land, yet will the ring and the hide
hold you fast.”
Like some huge bird of prey he ran
swiftly back across the flags and disappeared behind
the mass of stones, and Cuxson, not daring to move
for fear of tightening the thongs, sat almost numb
with anxiety as he wondered if his luck would hold
at the crucial moment.
Except for the crash of the frightened
animals as they fought their way through the undergrowth,
there was no sound whatever in the place, but as the
moon took her seat above the exact centre of where
once had been the temple roof, he moved, and leant
forward as far as the two feet of raw hide would allow
him, and from between his clenched teeth there came
one word:
“Hell!”
For the silence had been suddenly
broken by a girl’s sharp, hysterical laugh,
and though the sound was but a travesty, yet it was
surely Leonie’s laugh.
Twisting his arms in the space the
two feet of raw hide allowed him, the slow, sure,
desperate man with a mute appeal to his God,
sought and caught the iron ring in his hands.
And in the jungle clearing where the
fire smouldered dimly, and the coolies, flat on their
faces from abject terror, refused to move, Madhu Krishnaghar
sat, garbed as a servant, his brain in a whirl of religion
and hate, and his heart filled with love of the white
girl he had sent to certain death.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet, and
tearing his raiment from him flung it wide, and stood
nude save for the loin cloth about the slender middle,
and the turban which outlined his tortured face, looking
like some lost bronze statue in the deserted places
of the jungle. He raised his hands to heaven
and prayed.
“O Mother, spare her!
O great god, have pity upon her,” and the suddenly
risen wind took up his words and lifted them above
the tree tops, wafting them perhaps-and
why not-to the God of Infinite Love.
Yet even as he prayed Leonie crept
up to the doorway of the temple, staring unblinkingly
at the far end of the interior illuminated by the
flickering wicks of the hundreds of little lights.
She inhaled deeply, and half closed her glaring eyes
as the overpowering sickly perfume of flowers, and
some other indescribably sickening odour went to her
head like cheap wine.
“Yes?” she said questioningly,
although no sound had broken the intense stillness,
and stood quite still with her head a little on one
side, then dropped to one knee and commenced to unlace
her high boots, the slap of the laces pulled through
the holes cutting the silence like a knife.
With her hands clasped to her breast,
and walking on the tips of her bare toes, she moved
through the shadows towards the light, alone and obedient
to a will that had no pity. Flowers were strewn
thick in every direction, and over them she passed
to her death, while the eyes of the priest never once
left her face as he crouched in the opening which
led to the secret places of the temple; he even smiled
when she came to a standstill in front of the altar
and swayed, slightly overcome by the heavy atmosphere
even in her trance; and he nodded his head gently
when she bent down and gathering handsful of the flowers,
flung them up above her head and laughed the hysterical,
crazy laugh which had reached the ears of the man
she loved.
At her feet were thalees, brass
plates laden with offerings of grain, of woven stuffs,
of gold and silver; at her right hand a crimson silk
sari lay upon a heap of fallen stones, and upon
it was a garland of white flowers; and the slanting
mother-o’-pearl eyes of the Goddess Kali looked
down from out the black face at this girl who was to
be sacrificed in atonement for the misery she had
unwittingly brought upon the land of India and her
people.
Leonie’s hands moved mechanically
to her hair, which she unfastened and shook out in
all its glory; then they moved to the fastening of
her jersey, and one by one her garments slipped to
the floor, leaving her nude save for the covering
of her hair.
Leaning down she lifted the sari,
and with one quick movement twisted it about her waist
and across her breast; slipped the garland of white
flowers about her neck, and flinging back her hair
raised her hands above her head and shouted.
She did not sing or cry aloud, she
shouted with her mouth wide open, and her head thrust
forward between her uplifted arms, a degrading picture
of religious sensuality; and gathering up armsful of
flowers from the floor, ran lightly over to the priest
upon the tip of her bare toes which were stained a
hideous red, and putting the palm of one hand against
her forehead salaamed and said “Yes?” questioningly.
He laid no hand upon her, he made
no sign and spoke no word, but she, as drugged by
another’s will as if she were under the bane
of opium, followed him unhesitatingly into the secret
places of the temple. Her bare feet made no
sound on the dust of centuries; her eyes looked back
unwaveringly into the eyes of the gods who leered down
upon her; her hair caught around those others of which
it is not seemly to write; and before them all she
cast her flowers, and upon them all she laid her open
palm.
And Jan Cuxson held his breath when
she quietly sidled round the block of fallen masonry,
and standing in a moonray glanced at him from the
corner of her eyes. Hung with flowers, she looked
like a bacchante, with one beautiful arm and shoulder
showing bare through her mantle of tumbled hair.
And his eyes caught the shadow of
the priest cast by the passage lights on to the floor
as he stood hidden by the fallen stones, and he kept
still, but he called to his beloved, striving by his
will to break her chains, and truly at the sound of
the loved voice the frozen horrors of her face seemed
to break like ice-floes before the sun in spring.
“Leonie,” he called gently,
“Leonie, come to me, come here to me!”
Her eyelids suddenly closed upon the
staring gold-flecked eyes; her mouth quivered in a
little smile as she let fall the flowers about her
bloodstained feet and ran swiftly across to Jan; kneeling
she touched his face gently with her finger-tips,
and stretched her hands across his shoulders towards
the thongs which bound him to the ring in the wall.
Her hair fell upon him as she leaned
towards him, and a memory of the day he had found
her in Rockham Cove flashed across his mind; her mouth,
her beautiful scarlet virgin mouth had almost touched
his when the priest’s power, closing down, jerked
her back into the horrible travesty of her sweet,
gentle self.
She sat back upon her heels and laughed,
and said one word in Hindustani which is best translated
as dog, although it means infinitely more and worse;
and having uttered it she smote him across the mouth
with the flat of her hand and rose to her feet.
She stood for a moment laughing silently,
looking down upon him, and turning, ran swiftly across
the flags to the block of fallen stones. There
she paused and glanced at the white man bound to the
wall with the light of battle in his eyes, before
she disappeared, beckoning to the priest who followed
as she ran down the passage of the gods, making obeisance
before them as she passed.